Report:

Rainforest Alliance Evaluation:

El Salvador’s Avoided Deforestation in the Coffee Forest project (or the Coffee and Environment Initiative) is a mechanism that looks to stop the deforestation of coffee forests, which lose area every year due to the economic challenges faced by coffee growers. Covering 132,351 acres (53,560.63 hectares) of privately owned land, the project has a lifetime of 16 years, and the verified monitoring period was for the implementation of project activities over the years 2008, 2009 and 2010.

In response to coffee farmers’ economic problems, the BMI (the Multisectorial Investment Bank) set up two trust funds that aim to help producers. These funds collect and organize the commercial loans that the country’s private banks had issued to coffee growers up until 2001. For this project, a further trust fund was set up, the FIDECAM, which will give growers an economic incentive—reducing their yearly debt costs by up to 30 percent—to avoid cutting forests and maintain their coffee activity, halt deforestation rates and changes in land use, avoid greenhouse gas emissions and maintain their carbon stocks.